Author: Leslie Stewart

Coinbase is walking a tightrope in negotiations over the Transparency Act, telling the staffs of U.S. senators that it is not satisfied with their latest compromise proposal, but has not publicly opposed it, according to people familiar with the situation.The draft agreement was presented to crypto industry stakeholders on Monday and to banking industry stakeholders on Tuesday. There were mixed reactions from the crypto industry, according to people familiar with Monday’s meeting. While some stakeholders (particularly Coinbase) were unhappy, others were “pleasantly surprised,” one of the people said. No one can carry around a copy of the text and it…

All revolutions eventually become establishments. What began as cryptocurrency’s peer-to-peer challenge to the global financial order is rapidly being absorbed by traditional forces, trading its anti-elite soul for spot ETF legitimacy, institutional custody, and the same banking framework it was built to bypass.This is a familiar arc. Throughout history, every revolution began with a promise to overthrow old power structures and dismantle the status quo. Once in power, priorities shift to stability and preservation, turning ideals into systems. Inevitably, movements reach the edge of rebellion and, to survive, must court what they once eschewed: venture capital, institutional trust, and regulatory…

Iran’s official currency, the rial, collapsed in 2026. Hyperinflation is eating away at savings every day. Sanctions pile up on top of bad decisions and endless geopolitical pressure. Every day, people wake up with less money. As families scramble to buy necessities, everything they have saved disappears. This feels all too familiar. Lebanon has experienced exactly the same crisis since the end of 2019. It was the same kind of bank freeze, the same worthless currency devaluation, the same kind of desperate search for something of value. Then Bitcoin turned out to be a financial safe haven. There are now…

With the passage of the GENIUS Act and the US House of Representatives passage of the CLARITY Act, the US reversed its adversarial approach to the digital asset ecosystem. While the Biden administration has spent the past four years injecting uncertainty into users and innovators of digital assets, other countries have pursued different approaches. This reality became clear when I traveled to Latin America and Europe with bipartisan members of the House Financial Services Committee and the House Agriculture Committee for a series of digital asset oversight meetings.During discussions with both private sector and government policy leaders, I had the…

Am I the only one who feels that codes are growing a sense of cognitive dissonance right now?The crypto industry has always had innovative roots. It was featured in the Bitcoin White Paper in 2008. This is a direct response to the financial crisis that destroys livelihoods while protecting systematically deficit and corrupt banking systems. Bitcoin was not just a technological innovation, it was a political and ideological statement. A signal that builders and thinkers are ready to challenge the status quo with tools, not just words.As someone who has worked at Crypto for years, I should celebrate. Today, decentralized…

This year, the emergence of new internet people empowered by AI coding tools has empowered them to build software for Vibe Coder, the long-tailed internet. Vibe Coder tells the age of software development in the Internet economy, democratized, simple and instantly driven by builders rather than influencers.Vibe coders require a viral, organic way to sell their products. Crypto can provide it. New generation token launchers such as Believe and L() Ng are trying to unlock atmosphere launches using tokenized ideas markets that allow users to launch and trade product ideas. Once these tokenized ideas attract sufficient support, these platforms allocate…

The following open letter was written by Dan Bourne (Stanford), Joseph Bonneau (NYU), Julia Fanty (Carnegie Mellon), Ben Fish (Yare), Ali Jewels (Cornell), Farinas Cousanfer (UC San Diego), Andrew Miller (Arbna Champaign), and CIAM CHAMPANIE. (Stanford), Pramod Viswanath (Princeton).This is a multi-select question.Algorand, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Axelar, Babylon, Cardano, Cosmos, Eigenlayer, Espresso, Flashbots, Oasis, Starkware, Sui.Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) protocol, digital signature, formal verification, maximum extractable value (MEV), public key encryption, proof of work, rollup, trusted execution environment (TEE) used in blockchain systems, verifiable random functions (VRF), proof of zero knowledge.Which of the following applies to the above companies, projects, and…

The latest cryptography and congress news is everything Senate Democrats get Cold feet About Stablecoin Bill (The Genius Act). The same bill they voted for Just two months ago. Why flip-flops? Because they don’t like Trump They believe the bill will help him benefit.. Why are the Democrats putting a “replay” on this message of loss? Hate Trump won’t win the election. See Blood Bath of the 2024 Election.But here’s the kicker. Cryptocurrencies are not threats, they are opportunities. If Democrats drop a losing soundbite long enough to actually learn code, they will not only write better policies, but will…

It is often said that codes are some technology and some religions. It is therefore little surprising, therefore, that the unfolding regulatory overhaul involves both a search for active souls related to the state of cryptographic (often anti-establishment) core values, and palpable excitement for potential new use cases.Following Coindesk’s blessing, I asked panelists for the Regulatory Roundtable for Future People at Consensus 2025. Kayvan Sadeghi, Connor Spelliscy, Lewis Cohen, Michelle Ann Gitlitz and David Adlerstein can speak on the Spotlight Stage at 10am on May 14th at People’s Regulatory Roundtable. The round table is moderated by IVO Entchev. If you…

Customs duties, duties, duties.Trump’s repeated, repeated import division controlled the week. Initially, tariffs significantly lowered stocks and codes. Finally, the market rose again as all new non-Chinese tariffs suspend for 90 days.Bitcoin returned to the level that was at this point last week ($82,000). Analysts discussed whether the panic the previous day showed the qualities of a “safe shelter” (such as money), or whether it was a risk asset, just like many others. The consensus was that Bitcoin did something resilient rather than being completely at ease.Our Asian reporting team led the way in our market coverage. Omkar Godbole has…